K-12 Education

Information for teachers and group leaders

Whether you are from the Black Hills area or are traveling cross-country on a school trip, Crazy Horse Memorial, including the Indian Museum of North America, is an excellent field trip experience for your class. Advance booking is requested, so the Crazy Horse staff can work with your group to make your visit interesting and educational.

Please call 605.673.4681 well before your visit. We will need to know your planned arrival and departure times, grade level of your students and the approximate numbers of students and adult chaperones. Native American groups are admitted to Crazy Horse Memorial at no charge. Other groups are asked to pay a modest admission fee. (Remember that Crazy Horse accepts no governmental funds. Our important work is funded entirely by admission fees and charitable contributions.)

All school group visits begin with our 20-minute orientation video presentation describing the history of the Memorial and the work on the Crazy Horse mountain sculpture.

Depending on the age of your students, our staff can offer a “Treasure Hunt” that challenges teams of students to locate many artifacts and exhibits in the Indian Museum of North America.

If we provide this activity for your group, plan to spend a minimum of 2 to 2-1/2 hours at Crazy Horse. Adult chaperones also need to be actively engaged in this activity.

During the summer season, if weather and numbers of other visitors permit, we may also be able to offer your students a bus ride to the bottom of Crazy Horse mountain, which will require an additional 30 minutes.

Teachers and chaperones are expected to accompany the children throughout the tour. If your students visit the gift shop, they should visit a few at a time with your chaperones present.

Laughing Water Restaurant at Crazy Horse, or Heritage Village Restaurant a mile away, are happy to accommodate visiting school groups, with advance notice. We also can provide an area for your students to eat a sack lunch.

Visiting Crazy Horse Memorial is a memorable and enriching experience for your students. Please call 605.673.4681 to schedule your visit.

The Indian Museum of North America at Crazy Horse Memorial offers visitors of all ages an opportunity to learn about Native American history and culture. This extensive museum collection contains artifacts representing indigenous people from all regions of North America. Visitors from all over the world are able to sample and experience the diverse history, art, religion, government and economy of the North American Native peoples.

In May of 2000, Crazy Horse Memorial dedicated the 40,000 square foot Welcome Center that provided much-needed space to welcome a growing number of visitors that now exceeds one million annually. It also provides new classroom space as well as meeting and conference rooms, and a new library.

The Crazy Horse Memorial Library now contains more than 26,000 volumes with an emphasis on Native American literature and history. The library coordinates a growing number of requests from scholars and interested individuals for research information on Native American issues and the Crazy Horse Memorial project.

A roving classroom geared to help Lakota students improve their technology skills was showcased for the third consecutive year at Crazy Horse Memorial in the fall of 2008.

The classroom is called Starbase Project NOVA. The South Dakota Air & Army National Guard sponsors Project NOVA and it is part of the Department of Defense (DoD) Starbase initiative to help minority and rural students. NOVA is short for “New Opportunities,Visions and Attitudes.”

DoD Starbase focuses on elementary students, primarily fifth graders, to interest as many students as possible. The goal is to motivate them to explore science, technology, engineering and math as they continue their education. The program encourages them to set goals and achieve dreams using the motto that “dreams + action=Reality”®.

During NOVA’s stay at Crazy Horse, there were free public tours, as well as special classes for Custer area students, and several surrounding schools. NOVA’s computer gadgets include simulators that mimic military aircraft controls. Students also learn about the construction and operation of an airplane, perform scientific experiments and launch a rocket they built.

Project NOVA is a fun learning experience for the students and is another angle of the educational mission at Crazy Horse. We look forward to having Project NOVA back in 2009.

The Junior Scout program is an educational activity booklet designed to provide information about American Indian tribes. The activity booklet is a self guided education tool designed for small or large school age groups or families with children visiting Crazy Horse Memorial. The program features activities such as a treasure hunt to identify certain specific displays or exhibits located in the museum complex, word search, fill in the blanks, puzzle and drawing activities. The activity booklet is specific to the Lakota history and culture in order to learn more about the indigenous tribes in South Dakota and the Black Hills region. Upon completion of the activity the students receive: a signed Crazy Horse Memorial Junior Scout Certificate, pencil and wristband that have the Lakota terms Bravery, Respect, Generosity and Wisdom engraved on them.

Upon special request the Native American Cultural Center offers Lakota history and culture interpretive programs to enhance the learning experience while visiting the Memorial. Examples of activities include: setting up a Lakota style tipi and playing Lakota society camp games including shinny/field hockey, hoop toss, whipping top game, bone and pin game, whirling bone game and hand games.

When visitation slows down in the winter season the Cultural Center features a make and take table. This hands-on activity provides easy to follow instruction on how to make Lakota style crafts such as: miniature drums, medicine pouches and par fleche designs. The guests may actually take the finished artwork home. Each make and take item has explanations of its cultural significance and usage in order to teach the proper cultural respect.

In addition, the Native American Education and Cultural Center staff can provide classroom discussion and lessons on American Indian history, culture, and contemporary issues affecting tribes today.

The Native American Day celebration at Crazy Horse each year includes a program, Native American singers, dancers, artists and storytellers. Another highlight of the day is hands-on activities for children, a free buffalo stew lunch for all visitors and a blast on the mountain (weather permitting.)

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The 10th annual Native American Journalism Career Conference will be held at Crazy Horse Memorial April 14-16, 2009.

The Native American Journalism Career Conference, held at Crazy Horse Memorial every April since 2000, is the largest Native student journalism program of its kind in the country.  This year conference organizers are expecting 125 high school and college students, and 75 mentors, teachers and staff to participate.

The 9th annual conference held April 22-24, 2008 attracted the largest total attendance, and the second-best student attendance.  During the 2008 conference, two young ladies each received a $2,000 scholarship for further study. With these awards, the Crazy Horse scholarship program passed the one million dollar mark in cumulative awards.  It began in 1978 with a modest $250 award.  The presentation of the 2009 Crazy Horse Memorial Journalism Scholarships will take place at 11:00 am on Thursday, April 16 in the Orientation Theater.

Over the course of the three-day conference, experienced journalists – many of them Native American – will mentor the students on the basic skills and practices of journalism, including writing, photography and multimedia.  Featured speakers at general sessions will include Freedom Forum and USA TODAY founder Al Neuharth, Mount Rushmore Superintendent Gerard Baker, and Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation CEO/President Ruth Ziolkowski.

The conference is funded by the Freedom Forum Diversity Institute and co-sponsored by the South Dakota Newspaper Association, the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation, the Native American Journalists Association, and the journalism programs at South Dakota State University and the University of South Dakota.

For more information on the conference contact

Doris Giago with SDSU, 605.655.6236 • Doris_Giago@sdstate.edu; or

Janine Harris with the Freedom Forum, 605.677.5424 • jharris@freedomforum.org.

The 9th annual Native American Journalism Career Conference at Crazy Horse Memorial on April 22-24 was the biggest yet.

About 250 people, including 154 Native American high school and college students from 10 states attended. Conference coordinator Jack Marsh, Freedom Forum’s vice president for diversity programs, said this was the largest total attendance, and the second-largest student turnout, since the Freedom Forum, South Dakota Newspaper Association and other organizations started the program in 2000.
Mentors, several of them Native American, came from across the country to help the students and to encourage them toward journalism careers.
Of the nation’s 52,600 newspaper journalists, 284 are American Indians, the fewest of any ethnic group.
Officials plan to post the students’ projects at: www.freedomforumdiversity.org.